Amy: Good job on those. I like the middle one. Nice detail. Congrats on taking on the challenge of carving rock early on. These are great for rocks you just scavenged. Cannot wait until you get better rocks to wok with.
Have you thought about what kind of cord you are going to put on them. Now you'll have to take up another craft.
Good luck, and keep on posting in your new, Home Sweet Home(or Home sweet Thread)
Buzzy
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These are looking really good for your first efforts Amy, now you just need to slow your speed down and work the same grooves a bit more to clean up your detail and get rid of some of the tool marks. Keep a bit of water flowing, just enough to make a slurry and cool the diamonds. My rule of thumb with stone carving is 10-20% of the time to remove 80-90% of what isn't a tiki, and 80-90% of the time to get rid of that last 10%-20%.
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On 2006-12-02 01:35, Paipo wrote:These are looking really good for your first efforts Amy, now you just need to slow your speed down and work the same grooves a bit more to clean up your detail and get rid of some of the tool marks. Keep a bit of water flowing, just enough to make a slurry and cool the diamonds. My rule of thumb with stone carving is 10-20% of the time to remove 80-90% of what isn't a tiki, and 80-90% of the time to get rid of that last 10%-20%.

Thanks paipo, I will try that. I was using a little less water on the second one and it is much smoother and finshed looking. I will do what you said above. I had to stop as I needed to get a mask, I was inhaling all that dust and it got bad. I must have missed the part where you, Tama and Ben said "use a mask"

The third one, was just started. I am still looking for my "style" Thanks again for all the help.

Judging by the first three originals, Im sure you have a definate syle of your own just waiting to be explored. It always takes a bit of time to find your way, but creativity doesnt seem to be a stumbling block.
Mistakes/'learning experiences' are waiting to teach you what you dont want to repeat (give those ones back to the Gods), and successes will lead to repeats of good things. Good things will stick; practice makes perfect (or so I am told). You are on your way...

A couple of 'Rule #1's'...

-Wear a dust mask!!
-Get your light right (if you cant see, you cant carve)
-When designing, keep your tools in mind (but at the same time, dont let yourself be limited by them). At first it is common to visualise particular forms & have no idea of how you are going to create them. I believe this is a good way to start! Over time you will begin to 'know' your burrs & will instinctively reach for the 'right' ones...

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Ill be back; just had a truck turn up with a load of firewood. Better go and help unload...

here is 2 more pictures of the 2 with more smoothing and more finishing. I will continue to work on these. Thanks Paipo and Tama for the finishing hints. They look a lot better in person. My photo skills are just lacking.

Good to see some better shots of those. You have some really nice forms/balance going on in there that I imagine would translate well on a larger scale. To me, this is one way of gauging the 'strength' of a design if ever in doubt... It seems you have a natural eye for these things.